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  I want her. Now. Here. Wherever.

  I just need that feeling to come back. I need that calm, that ease. I need what she can give me. All of it.

  “What’s going on?” Her eyes show clear concern as she peers up at me while we walk.

  Toby lags somewhere behind. Fuck, he can stay there to drink his fucking coffee for all I care.

  “Preshow nerves.” Fucking bullshit artist. I shift my drink to the other hand, and then loop my arm around her shoulders. “You think we’ve got enough time to take the edge off for me before I head out?”

  “Before you head out?” Her brow pinches. “Am I not coming with you?”

  Fuck. So not going to get me laid. “I thought you might want to hang out where it’s quiet and compose, or some shit.”

  “Or some shit,” she mutters, sidestepping to slide out of my hold. “Sure. Why not?”

  “Kitty.…”

  “No. It’s fine.” Her lips wrap around the straw of her frap, and fuck me if that doesn’t have me thinking about blowjobs. She swallows and takes another stab. “It’s not as though I believed you’d actually get me onstage again, anyway. I mean, how naïve would that be, right?” Her eyes are hard as she veers a little to stay out of arm’s reach.

  Fuck this shit. Fuck me and my goddamn mouth. Fuck having to do this, to function in society when all I want is a dark room and a pack of smokes.

  Rapid cycling bipolar. I cracked a joke to the shrink when they diagnosed it, asking him if it meant I had to learn how to ride a bike. Dude didn’t seem to see the funny side of things, explaining what the term meant to me anyway.

  All it basically means is that unlike other forms of bipolar where the mania phase lasts weeks to months, and the resulting depression does the same, lucky me gets the entire cycle condensed down into a much shorter time frame.

  The longest I’ve gone between peaks is four months. My average is exactly this: three to four weeks.

  I’m pushing through the low like I’m in the midst of a fucking mud run, my limbs tired, my lungs burning as I put everything I have into reaching that finish line. Mania exists on my horizon, taunting me with its brilliance, with its warmth. All I have to do is survive the pot-shots my head takes at me while I wrestle those final yards and then all will be fine again, for a week at least.

  I just need to push Tabby over that line first, otherwise Lord knows she’ll get destroyed in my wake.

  We met as I started the slide. She doesn’t know me during full-blown mania, and I don’t know if she’d want to.

  I’m a right fucking asshole.

  God complex times ten.

  She punches the button on the walk signal, sipping her drink beside me while we stand in mutual silence. What runs through her head? Is it as messed up as mine? Or is she back thinking about childhood pets and other fun memories again?

  It’s fucked, really. I strived so hard to get where I am, worked my ass off to never want for a thing again, and all I did was realize that everything I did, it was all for nothing.

  All the money and fame in the world can’t buy me the one thing I want most: to know what it feels like to be “normal.”

  I reach between us and slide my hand along hers, entwining our fingers. Tabby glances down at the contact as the walk signal tells us to move, and offers a soft smile. It’s the best I can do when words don’t seem to suffice. Physical contact. An apology through touch.

  The best and most reserved part of me: my intimacy.

  It’s all I can give her, and fuck, I hope it’s enough.

  FORTY-TWO

  Tabitha

  “Love the Way You Hate Me” – Like A Storm

  “Can I ask a favor?” I press my hands tight in my lap as I lean toward Toby.

  He sets his takeaway cup down and glances to where Rey and Kris smoke on the balcony before settling his gaze on me. “Sure.”

  “Do you think there’d be a way we could talk in private?”

  His shoulders drop as he leans back into his seat and shifts focus to the cup. “Have you asked him?”

  “Asked him what?” I say, well aware he talks about Rey.

  “Whatever you want to know from me.” He watches the vessel turn in his hand.

  I knew this was a bad idea. After all, they’re blood. Of course he’ll stay loyal to Rey.

  “Forget I said anything, okay?” I turn in my seat to stand, yet his hand over mine stills me.

  Rey stares through the glass slider at us both and frowns.

  Toby shifts, sitting tall so he can lean both elbows on the table. “Maybe I could get Rick to ask to see you so eagle-eyes over there isn’t too suspicious.”

  I make a point of not looking toward Rey again, well aware the more I glance his way the guiltier I look. “If you’re sure. If you’d rather not, I get that. I mean we hardly know each other.”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know about you, but I can pick an asshole when I see one, and you, Tabby, aren’t an asshole.”

  “Gosh. You’re so sweet,” I tease.

  He chuckles. “Rey asked you here for a reason, and I know my brother well enough to trust he has the best intentions. So if I can possibly do something that helps to keep him happy as well, then I’ll give it a try.”

  I fail at keeping my focus on the table and glance to Rey. He laughs at something Kris says, but the dull look in his eye immediately after concerns me. How much of this calm, this ease, is a put on?

  He said it himself the other night: the thoughts are still there, he’s just not focused on them.

  “What happened that first time?” I lean my head on one hand, elbow propped on the table as I face Toby.

  He sighs, thumb picking at the ridges of the cardboard cup. “Have you looked us up online?”

  “A little. Yeah. I read a few stories about the band.”

  He shakes his head. “Not us, as in Dark Tide, but us as in each of us. Our personal accounts.”

  “Oh.” I wriggle my fingers so they thread through my hair. “Just Rey, which led me to Emery. But that’s about it.”

  He glances my way, before returning his focus to the growing pile of cardboard dust beneath his cup. “Well, if you had you’d know that you can’t find me.” He presses his lips together. “I hate the internet. I tolerate it for what we have to use it for, business, but I avoid it otherwise.”

  “That shows some incredible self-control in this day and age,” I muse.

  “It’s not hard,” he says flatly. “Not after that first attempt you asked about.”

  I stay silent, allowing him the space to either continue or choose to end the conversation there without any pressure from me.

  He closes his eyes and rubs a hand over his face before deciding to carry on. “He researched online how to gas yourself; carbon monoxide.” Toby’s gaze flicks to the balcony, most likely to check Rey still remains out of earshot. “Idiot went for a drive after school and set it all up.” He shakes his head in disbelief, focus still on his brother. “I don’t know why, but I just had this feeling, this gut instinct that told me something wasn’t right. Rey didn’t have a lot of friends in school, so it was sort of unusual for him to go anywhere for any length of time after.”

  “He said you found him.”

  Toby nods, turning his head toward the suite door when Rick rejoins the room.

  “They ready?” Rick tips his head toward Rey and Kris.

  Emery follows him in, pale as a ghost.

  “You okay?” Toby pushes from his seat, our conversation seemingly forgotten for now.

  Rick shakes his head at Emery, eyes hard. “If you can find out what the fuck he took, then good luck. He won’t tell me.”

  “I’m fine.” Em waves the two of them off, uncapping the bottle of water in his hand.

  Must be bad.

  My attention is drawn to Toby when he leans back over the table to whisper, “Get my number from Kendall and send yours to me. Might be easier to have this convo that way.”

  As t
hough to cement his point, the slider opens and Rey calls across the room. “What are you lot talking about over there in your knitting circle?”

  “Our walking chem lab,” Toby quips, gesturing to Emery.

  Their bassist flips the bird in return.

  “Fuck, man. You look like shit.” Rey rests his hands around my neck when he stops behind me. It’s an odd display of dominance, yet non-threatening. Almost arousing. I need help. “You okay, Em?”

  “Fine.” Emery’s shoulders drop as he accepts a packet of the mini-bar crackers from Kris. “Thanks, mom.”

  “Somebody has to look after you,” Kris mumbles before walking out the door. “I guarantee you haven’t eaten anything else.”

  Emery follows with a shrug, tearing the packet open as he goes.

  “Come on you two.” Rick jerks his head toward the door. “We need to get going.”

  Toby lifts his jacket from the back of a chair on his way out, silently exiting behind Rick as Rey steps to my side and tucks his fingers under my chin to coax me to face him.

  I lose myself in his concentrated gaze, recognizing the doubt that clouds those grays. “Go,” I urge softly. “You don’t want them pissed at you for making them wait again.”

  “You can come too, if you want.” His thumb strokes beneath my bottom lip. “I didn’t mean to cut you out like that.”

  “It’s fine.” I take his offered hand and let him guide me from my seat. “Like you said, I should use the time to compose. I’ll see you before the show, okay?”

  He takes my face in his hands, resting his forehead to mine. “Wish I could stay here instead.”

  “I wish you could too.” So many things I want to talk to him about, especially after his breakdown the other night. “But your fame awaits, mister rock star.”

  “Don’t.” He shakes his head gently against mine. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Isn’t that what you are?” I tease.

  He pulls back, eyes hard on mine. “Not to you.”

  I melt into his kiss, yet push gently against his chest to remind him he has people waiting.

  He steps back with a laugh. “Fine. I’m going.”

  “Not that I’m trying to get rid of you … but.”

  He grins, backing toward the sofa where he then lifts his jacket. “I’m glad you came, kitty.”

  “I am too.” Although I still wonder if it was the wise thing to do. “I’ll be here,” I reassure him, sensing he needs that promise.

  He nods, and then turns for the door.

  I watch him leave, a weight lifting from my shoulders only to settle in my chest as he shuts the door behind him.

  What the hell am I doing here? His promise of getting me onstage again has all but vanished, the theory that we’d work on music together non-existent. And yet I stay.

  Why? What have I done to actually help him?

  I get comfy on the sofa with the room service menu and dial Kendall on speaker.

  “Hey, babe.”

  “Heya.”

  She sighs at my flat response. “How are things on the road, then?”

  Lonely. “Odd.”

  “Odd? How?”

  Because I never know what Rey I’m going to get, or what the hell I’m doing. “I’ve spent most of my time so far hanging out at the hotel.”

  Kendall sighs. “I know I was a right bitch when you left but.…” She huffs. “I don’t know. Something didn’t sit right about him.”

  “I don’t think anything sits right with him.”

  Those moments the morning after his meltdown in the last hotel room—magic. But that guy? He’s the exception rather than the norm, it seems.

  “Do you think it helps, though? Having you there?”

  “Maybe.”

  He was a right jackass at the Starbucks, mocking those fans who had the guts to come up and meet him. Not to mention the cocky attitude I got on the walk back. But then give him an hour to unwind and he’s all cuddles and warmth again.

  I can’t tell anymore what’s real, and what’s not.

  I just want the genuine guy to come back again, even if his honesty does scare the shit out of me.

  “Babe,” Kendall says with a sigh. “If this trip doesn’t help him, then you’ve got to ask yourself why you’re doing it. What about your career, huh? You’ve stalled it, all to tag along with his.”

  “I know.” She doesn’t tell me anything I haven’t already thought over a thousand times.

  “Has he done what he said he would?” she presses. “Will you get stage time again?”

  “I want to say yes …”

  “But nobody’s talking about it, so it’s probably not happening, right?” She sighs. “Why are you doing this, babe?”

  “I don’t know,” I whine. “I can’t explain why, but I feel as though this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  Silence lingers between us. I know she’s still there by the background noise, yet she seems just as stuck as I do.

  “I need a favor,” I say carefully. “Can you please message me Toby’s number?”

  “Why?” I pick up the change in sound as she switches me to speaker.

  “I asked him if I could talk about Rey, and since they’re always around each other, he said that might be the easiest way to do it.”

  “Why didn’t he just give you the number himself?”

  “Because we were being watched—case and point.”

  “Oh.” My phone chimes with a message. “Sent.”

  “Thanks, hon.”

  “Hopefully he can help you decide what to do.” She pauses. “You know how I feel about this whole arrangement.”

  “You want me to come home,” I state.

  “And not just because I’m going crazy on my own.” Kendall laughs, the sound heartwarming. “I seriously contemplated getting a goldfish so I’d have something to talk to.”

  “You need to catch up with your college buddies, hon. When was the last time you went to dinner with them?”

  “Pfft. When I could afford to, so that would be, like, three years ago.” She hesitates. “We keep in touch on Facebook, so it’s not as though I’m a complete hermit.”

  “Except that you are.”

  “Hey,” she protests. “You aren’t much better… usually.”

  “Truth.”

  Weekend drinks at happy hour once a month was about as adventurous as she and I would get. Even more reason why I’d hoped to tag along on some of the things the band get up to outside the shows.

  “How is your new material coming along?”

  “Slow.” I push the menu around the coffee table before me. “I thought I’d get inspired being in new places, but instead I just feel… I don’t know, unsettled?”

  “You’re distracted.”

  Am I what. “I told Rey he needed to have a sit down with the guys and talk through what’s going on.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Sat on the balcony and smoked until it was time for them to go.”

  She snorts. “Open to change, then.”

  “Exactly.” I push the menu aside and kick back. “It’s like he knows what his issues are, yet he doesn’t think he needs to do anything about it. Well, no, he wants to, he maybe can’t see how? I don’t know. It’s confusing anyway.”

  “And what do the others do?” A rustle cuts through the line as she juggles the phone.

  “Act as though nothing will ever change, too. Toby’s real pissed at him. Have you talked to him lately?”

  Her pregnant pause says it all. “He went quiet a couple of days ago. I figured I was a fun one-off thing, you know?”

  “Men.”

  “Right?”

  My fingers toy with the loose thread on the hem of my T-shirt. “What would you do, if you were me, babe?”

  “It’s hard to say, Tab. What does your gut tell you?”

  “Stick it out.” An opinion that’s no doubt clouded by the epic orgasm he gave me at the last hotel.

 
“You don’t have to tell me details,” Kendall levels, “but what exactly are you two? I mean he kissed you, like, superhot before you two left. Are you…?”

  “Fucking?”

  She clears her throat. “I was trying to be more subtle.”

  “No. Not exactly.”

  “But you’re, like, involved somehow?”

  I sigh, sliding down the seat to hide my face behind my hands. “I don’t know. That’s just it. He keeps telling me he wants me around, but then he pushes and pulls and I really don’t know where I stand with him.”

  “So ask him.”

  “I did,” I cry. “I asked him what happens after the tour.”

  “And?”

  “And he showed me what else he can do with his mouth.”

  “Ooh.”

  “Yeah.” I moan, arms flailing to my sides. “How the hell can something get so complicated in the space of a few weeks?”

  “Intense emotions, babe. He’s mega into you.”

  “See, I don’t know if he’s into me, or—” I cringe at what I’m about to say. “—or if his bipolar is into me.”

  She sucks a breath with a hiss. “Damn. That’s rough, especially from you.”

  “See my problem now? That’s mostly why I want to talk to Toby and get some insight on him; I don’t know Rey well enough to be able to know.”

  She clicks her tongue in a way that has me imagining her on our sofa, tapping her lips like she does when she thinks. “What’s your biggest worry out of it all?”

  “That I get attached right before he ditches me.”

  “There’s something more, though.”

  She’s right—there is. I get the shivers every time I think it. “What if I admit defeat and walk away, and that’s his final straw?”

  “You’re only protecting yourself if you choose to do that, babe, and there’s no dishonor in that.”

  “There is if it means I tip him over the edge. He’s attached. I can see that, but I think he needs to clear up in what way for himself before he can give me an honest answer.”

  “Give it until the tour ends,” she says resolutely. “It’s an easy out then if things don’t clear up.”

  “I don’t want an out, though. I like him, a lot. I just want him to be clear on what he wants from me.” I sigh and reveal my biggest insecurity. “I don’t want to end up being a tour bunny that keeps his libido in check.”